


One Way Radio

by aliencereal



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, D&D is played, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Muteness, Slow Build, This Is Mostly A Sam/Five Fic, mostly canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-10 01:16:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliencereal/pseuds/aliencereal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Runner Five isn't just quiet, she's physically mute.  Sam will have to talk enough for both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. re: JOLLY ALPHA FIVE NINER

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic is going to be little post-mission ficlets, for the most part. If anything goes beyond a T rating, I'll post it separately for you guys.

Sam, at first, thinks that the new Runner Five is going to be one of the chatty ones. Something about the bright, cheerful, happy-to-be-alive smile she shoots him as Maxine leads her away for a checkup gives him the same vibe as Jody after a really, _really_ successful run. He gets a good vibe from her.

Janine does not share his optimism. A few hours later, Sam is getting ready to play comms operator for Runner Eight, because a new runner is exciting but not a reason to stop your daily activities, when she storms into his booth. The headset she sets down on the desk looks innocent enough.

“It works _perfectly_ ,” Janine says, sharply, when Sam looks at her with confusion.

“Well. Isn't that... good?” Sam asks, raising an eyebrow.

“This is _your_ new Runner Five's headset. She should have been able to talk to you that whole time,” Something about the way Janine says ' _your_ ' reminds Sam of an angry parent talking to their spouse. He'd have commented on it if his stomach wasn't busy sinking uncomfortably.

“But she didn't--”

“And therein lies the problem, Mr. Yao,” Janine sounds furious, and while Sam gets tense anytime he hears that tone, he knows she isn't mad at him. Whatever Runner Five's motivation had been to stay entirely silent, Janine clearly doesn't think it was good.

***

The next time Sam sees Maxine, Runner Five is trailing along behind her, clutching a thick, slightly battered notebook. There's something innocently happy on the runner's face, and it melts the suspicion in Sam's gut even before Maxine opens her mouth.

“Runner Five is mute,” Maxine says, with an unusual amount of firmness that leads Sam to think she's already corrected Janine's assumptions.

“Oh,” Sam responds, watching with interest as Five opens the notebook, uncapping the marker clipped to the side as she does.

“She's got some kind of microphone-tapping system she's been using to tell operators what's going on on her end. It doesn't sound too complicated,” Maxine is still talking, but Five's furious scribbling is distracting.

“I'm sure I can figure it out,” Sam's enthusiasm clearly carries to Five, who looks up to grin at him just before she turns the notebook to him to read. She's written in all capitals, and her handwriting is neat and clean.

'THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME. I LOOK FORWARD TO WORKING WITH YOU!'

“You too!” Sam replies, realizing after the fact that he's talking to the notebook instead of her face and quickly looking up to make eye contact. At least Five's smile doesn't slip.

“I'm taking her around to explain the situation before her first run. Are Jack and Eugene in?” Maxine asks.

“Yeah, I think so,” Sam tells her, and follows up with, “They're the radio guys. You'll like them,” when Five looks curious. She gives him a thumbs up and a smile in return.

It isn't until the women have left to continue their rounds that Sam realizes he forgot to ask what Runner Five's name is.


	2. re: LAY OF THE LAND

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the future, tap code will be written in **bold** , notes will be written in ALL CAPS and sign language will be written in _italics_. Hope this helps!

Runner Five is the sort of person who cleanly removes the little fringey bits from the sides of ripped out notebook pages. This is the sixth thing Sam learns about her, after 'not dead', 'runs really damn fast', 'turned out to be a girl', 'nice smile' and 'can't talk'.

Sam knows this because when he sits down at his desk on the morning of Runner Five's first official run for Abel, she's left him a neatly folded sheet of paper. Apparently nobody gave her the memo that he won't actually be her operator today, as Evan wants to be the one to run her tour. Either way, it's better he gets it earlier rather than later. Someone tapping on their microphone isn't exactly how he usually communicates with his runners.

The paper starts with a note in Five's handwriting, all capital letters, clean and clear.

'HI SAM! JANINE TOLD ME I'M GOING TO START ASAP, SO YOU'D NEED A COPY OF MY TAP-CODE CHEAT SHEET! IF ANYTHING CAUSES A PROBLEM FOR YOU, WE CAN CHANGE IT!'

She's signed it with a numerical '5', giving Sam no clues as to her real name. He'll have to remember to ask Janine for it. Or Maxine. Whoever he runs into first.

The rest of the paper is a set of hand-written instructions.

'ONE TAP -- YES  
TWO TAPS -- NO  
(FOR YES OR NO QUESTIONS! MY LAST OPERATOR ALSO HAD ME USE ONE TAP TO CHECK IN OR TO INDICATE I GOT A MESSAGE!)

THREE TAPS -- FOUND MEDICAL SUPPLIES  
FOUR TAPS -- FOUND WEAPONS / AMMUNITION'

It goes on like this, with the basic categories labeled as simple tap numbers and more complex things like 'insulin' and 'extra large socks' labeled with sequences like morse code. Five has helpfully told him that if he wants to avoid the complex ones for now, he can just ask her yes or no follow up questions when she gives him a broad category.

At the very end, she's added something that, while practical, makes his skin crawl, a little.

'IF I GET BITTEN, I'LL SCRATCH THE MIC WITH MY FINGERNAIL FOR A WHILE. IT SOUNDS DIFFERENT. I CHECKED ON A FEW HEADSETS AT MULLINS. WE'LL TEST IT BEFORE I START TO MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE.'

He hadn't considered that her creative method of communicating with an operator might include a way to communicate _that_ , no matter how much sense it makes now that he knows it.

Sam leans back in his chair, looking at the sheet of instructions but not actually reading them. Five raises a lot of really unhelpful questions, like if there was a way to say 'zombie' in sign language, or how much it must suck to try to get someone to realize you're not infected if you can't shout it at them.

Before Evan takes over, Sam makes sure he at least knows Five's codes for 'yes' and 'no'. He spends his free time, while Evan does his job for him, learning the rest of them.


	3. re: A LOST CHILD

So, Runner Five likes kids.

Or, at least, she really likes Molly.

It's been almost 6 hours since her mission, and she hasn't let the little girl out of her sight the whole time. It's a little surreal to watch someone play with a baby in complete silence, but after a few minutes of being in the makeshift cafeteria near it, it starts to feel natural. Ed is talking to Janine about something in the main house, and it seems that Five's been given permission to look after his daughter in his absence.

Jack makes a joke about women and babies, Eugene elbows him.

Sam is glad the story had a happy ending, for a change.


	4. re: RECOVERY

They got a lot of stuff out of the helicopter crash site, but Sam's pretty sure Runner Five's ID card is the most valuable of the lot. He knows her name now.

What he doesn't know, though, is what to do with the vaguely distressed look she'd given him when he'd called her that when congratulating her on today's run. They'd just run into each other in the hallway and it'd seemed a natural thing to say, but she'd just looked so _put out_.

In the end, he goes to talk to Maxine about it. He'd tried Janine first, but she'd pointedly told him that if his interpersonal problems weren't directly interfering with anyone's job performance, they weren't any of her business.

“You didn't know her name?” Maxine asks, sounding incredulous. “It's written on her paperwork, Sam.”

Sam groans.

“I didn't _get_ that paperwork!” He protests, and Maxine raises an eyebrow.

“Check the pile under your desk. But, that's not the issue here, right? She doesn't like it when you call her by her name. Did you ask her why?” Maxine has that soft, maternal tone in her voice today, and it makes Sam feel a little better, like he's talking to an affectionate big sister or something.

“I wouldn't know how to bring that up even if I _could_ have a casual conversation with her. Can you imagine? Hi there Runner Five, I should call you that, right? Because when I used your first name, you looked like I kicked over your sand castle. Why was that, by the way?” Sam complains, leaning back in his chair and sighing heavily.

“You know, she signs all the notes she sends me with '5', even when they're not inventory lists,”

“She writes you notes?” Sam asks, sitting up a little straighter. This is new information.

“I recommended her a few books, asked her to tell me what she thought. Not important,” Maxine says, shaking her head. “ _Ask_ her, Sam. She's just a person, nothing to be scared of.”

***

So, Sam does ask. In the cafeteria, where she's eating lukewarm beans and doodling in her notebook and he's pretty sure that's batman she's drawing and _focus_ , Sam.

“Do you not want me to use your name?” He blurts out, and Five startles, looking up from her notebook. It's clear she wasn't expecting him to talk to her. Stupid. That's the worst way to start this conversation.

She hesitates, then starts writing something for him.

'WHEN YOU TALK IN SIGN LANGUAGE, YOU GIVE SOMEONE A NAMESIGN. MY DEAF FRIENDS ALL CALLED ME BY THE SAME SIGN. IT MEANT SOMETHING, LIKE A NICKNAME, SO I USED IT AS ONE WITH MY HEARING FRIENDS TOO.

THEY ARE ALL GONE NOW. PEOPLE ONLY CALLED ME BY THE NAME ON MY ID AT MULLINS. IT STARTED TO FEEL VERY LONELY.

I LIKE BEING 5. IT'S LIKE A NEW NAMESIGN. I CAN SAY IT WITH MY HANDS WITHOUT HAVING TO SPELL IT OUT.

RUNNER 5 IS MY NAME.'

She's smiling while he reads it, but her eyes are sad.

He only calls her Runner Five, after that.


End file.
